Thursday, September 8, 2011

Two Ps of (semi) successful potty training


source: http://thestepmomstoolbox.com/



 Ladies and gentlemen, the seemingly impossible had happened: no, no aliens have landed; no, the job market in the US still sucks and there are no confirmed white unicorn sightings anywhere.

But this is something monstrously important for our little corner of the world: our zaiki are PEEING ON THE POTTY!!!!

For someone who is childless, this may not a big deal and they may get grossed out by further reading as it discusses toilet habits of toddlers. But people with small children understand the hugeness of this event. I know that the road to diaper-free existence is not over by all means, but this is a grand first step.

Zaiki had been refusing to sit on the potty for months. I tried bribery, which didn’t work at all, then I let it go, tried again, lamenting that our girls will be the only high schoolers in diapers. You may have read my whining in the earlier post on this blog. And last week, it happened: both asked to go to the bathroom. What preceded this was hard work of yours truly, Kevin and our babysitter.

Since I’m a smugly confident potty-training expert now, let me walk you through this step by step:

It all started two weeks ago when my babysitter took zaiki to the store and bought them pretty panties with princesses and Dora. Naturally, the girls wanted to wear them. We started wearing them over the diaper. Then without the diaper for 20 minutes. Told them they are not allowed to pee on the princess/Dora/whatever because it will make her sad. Then we would put them on the potty every 30 minutes (my sitter actually had a kitchen timer set) for 5 minutes.

After about 3 days they started to recognize the urge to go. This sucky rainy Labor Day weekend I took the diapers off completely while we were at home. After Maya got praises and hugs for going, Sonya got huffy and had to do exactly the same thing “sissy” was doing, which was sitting on the potty with her bare butt and picking her nose. Flushing the toilet is a privilege (yes, 2-year olds are extremely easy to amuse) so both were trying to outpee each other. This sibling rivalry worked to our advantage, and for the past week we hardly used diapers at all: only for naps and car rides. Of course, we had a couple of accidents, two pairs of underwear had to be thrown away, but that’s all small stuff that will correct itself with time.

So these are my two Ps of potty training: Peer pressure and Pretty panties.  I may get two letter Ps fancily intertwined tattooed on my back, this is how happy I am about this. J

No comments:

Post a Comment